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Mobile commerce and online shopper behaviour in Japan

Read below more about ecommerce growth, ecommerce sales and cross-border ecommerce in Japan

Japan is a strong ecommerce market, with a high proportion of urban population and significant internet penetration rate at almost 80%. 75% of the population have purchased products online, and 89% of this group have done so from a mobile device. Japanese merchants have been exporting significant amounts of merchandise cross-border, primarily to the US and China. Conversely, cross-border ecommerce imports are lower, with only 20% of Japanese online consumers buying from abroad.

• Total Population
- 127.3 million
• Age Breakdown
- Almost a quarter of the population (24.8%) in Japan are over 65, the second largest section after the 24-54 age limit (38.3%).
• Religion
- Religion in Japan is characterised by syncretism; most people identify with more than one religion and sometimes combine more than two.
- Religions that are commonly combined are Shinto and Buddhism; the percentages for these religions equate to more than 100%.
• Urban Population
- 92%
• Internet Penetration
- 79.9%
101.6 million
• Mobile Penetration
- 102%
• Tablet Penetration
- 10%
• Smartphone Penetration
- 55%
• Online Shoppers
- 76 million
• Ecommerce Sales
USD 104.7 billion (JPY 11.2 trillion)
• Ecommerce Penetration
- 44.6%
• Ecommerce CAGR
- 10.9% (2008 – 2013)
• Mobile Commerce
- 89% of Japanese consumers have participated in mobile commerce activities.
- Japan rates third globally in app usage, at an average of 40 apps per smartphone, and ranks highest globally in paid app usage at 18 apps per phone.
- 22% of online shopping in Japan was conducted through mobile devices including smartphones, tablets and future phones. It was worth approximately USD 9.7 billion.
• Mobile OS Platforms
- iOS is the preferred mobile operating system in Japan, with 68.7% share.

Cross-border Ecommerce Opportunities
• 10.2% of Japanese online consumers shop from overseas websites.
• 99% of the Japanese population fully comprehends websites with content in the Japanese language, thus localisation is key element to success in Japan.
• The US and China are the main destinations for both cross-border ecommerce export and import from Japan.

Language as a Key Driver
• The official language of Japan is Japanese, spoken by 125 million speakers, almost exclusively in Japan. 99% of the population speaks Japanese.
• Japanese speakers can also be found in Brazil (1.4 million), the US (1.2 million) China (130,000), Canada (110,000) and Australia (35,000).
In Japan, there are also a number of Korean and Chinese speakers, 640,000and 500,000respectively.